White Lace
by LynniePearl
Summary: Speculation on Chuck's ILY.1st May be slightly spoilerish for location. This time, this time it's Chuck Bass standing before Blair Waldorf with his heart on his sleeve, his stomach in his throat, and his life on the line. This time it's love. *Drabbles*
1. White Lace

_**A/N - So this literally snuck up on me. I was conversing with my girls, posting on Fan Forum, and jumping between writing the next TTE update and hashing out my newest fic when this ambushed me. Make of it what you will. :). Thoughts?  
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She's sitting before me with that look on her face that tells me she's waiting. That she's BEEN waiting. And I know if I can't bring myself to finally say the words, finally put a name to the feeling that has been my tether to life since before sultry dances, leather seats, and birthdays, I'll doom myself to a life...well, without life.

And she's till waiting, with that little crinkle in her brow that says we've been here before, Bass. She doesn't expect me to say it this time either.

But this time is different. I can see her eyes clearly, I'm not numbed by narcotics, pharmaceuticals, alcohol or anything else - I want to remember this moment.

This time, I'm not looking to wound her, or wallow in my grief in solitude.

This time, I'm standing center stage with my hands pressed against the shanty table the prop department means to resemble a twelve century antique and my back turned on all of New York, it seems.

This time, her eyes aren't searching mine, pleading for the response I should have given her when she broke before me in all her white glory.

This time, it's not a game, or a pare. Or even a challenge.

This time, this time it's Chuck Bass standing before Blair Waldorf with his heart on his sleeve, his stomach in his throat, and his life on the line.

This time it's love.

And I'm not scared, or shattered. She's not trailing after me with broken dreams. She's found herself, and I me, and in turn I've found my way back to her.

Because I do love her. I will love her. And she will never take another breath without knowing it.

And neither will the audience, as they seem to be collectively holding theirs waiting for me to say something. To say anything.

She's gotten to her feet now, and is standing with me between our collective families and friends and the table that looks more like a podium the more it creeps into my peripheral vision.

So I do what I should have done that night when the future had seemed so far away from my perch on bended knee.

I tell her I love her. Without hesitation. In front of our family and friends and anyone who matters

The lace of her white bonnet obscures her eyes and I can't tell if she's humiliated or over joyed. So I gingerly lift from her face and find tears that match my own glistening down her cheeks. I repeat the words and they flow from my lips easier then I'd ever imagined. Not because she'd demanded them. Not because I'd been backed into a corner. And not because she'd been about to kiss Humphrey - and me goodbye - in front of her public.

But because they are true.

And the thought strikes me, as her cream coloured gown melds into the fabric of my black tux and the podium behind us edges toward alter, that the man who first equated the term 'wife' with 'ball and chain' had never met Blair Waldorf.

Or Chuck Bass.

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A/N I'll hopefully be updating Maho/TTE/dark!fic within a couple of days. :)

Lynne


	2. White Knights

_**A/N - I own nothing. Is partially inspired by my wifey, Court. Balcony. I've decided to do a few of these little ILY drabbles. If you have a request, feel free to...well, request it:). Let me know what you think . :)**_

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The ding of the elevator announced her arrival and she was reminded of the time not too long ago that he stood in her shoes, flowers in hand.

But that elevator had closed, that moment was gone and she was here now, egged on by her mother and Serena and everyone else claiming to have her best interest at heart.

If only they'd had her best heart at heart, they wouldn't have forced her into the shoes she wore now and made her attend.

But that was impossible; her heart lay in pieces at his feet.

Her smile was tight as she offered the not so lonely widow a curt nod. Why they even were bothering with a memorial service when the man who had given life to the boy that had caused hers to end had already been mourned and buried, was beyond her.

_No, it's not_, that voice in her head whispered. She knew damn well why everyone had slipped behind the sad, black curtain to reenact the morbid scene once more.

Chuck.

He'd been too engulfed by sorrow; too enraged by grief to even make it past the threshold of the home he'd played house in after his father had bound them by law to the harlot and her blond babes.

She'd be kinder to the trio of blondes later, when they'd fallen further down her list of targets. Now, they occupied slots one through three as they'd promised her her visit needn't be long. But as her eyes slide to the evening's focus slipping through the heavy velour curtain to lace fresh air with tobacco and she caught sight of Serena's anything but subtle head jerk towards the balcony, she knew they'd lied.

Blood was thicker than water, true, but it would also make more of a mess when spilt.

She knew she shouldn't follow him, but the music suddenly seemed too loud, the air too stale, and her face too hot so she didn't mount a mutiny when she realized her feet were already carrying her toward the cool night air.

He stood there, with his dark suit and dark hair and dark eyes, unlit cigarette poised between his fingers and spoke but one word.

"Blair."

And with that one word the tiny piece of her heart that hadn't been ripped from her chest and didn't lay crumbled at his feet began to thump louder and louder in her ears until she was convinced its call could be heard from the ends of the earth.

Because he hadn't said it with malice like when his uncle's words had surged past his lips to tear at her flesh, or with the quiet apology of a boy who'd been too late to stitch the wound together. The name hadn't slipped from his lips in passion, or been spat angrily in disgusted desire.

He'd said it with relief, with warmth, with _love._

He didn't move to bridge the gap between them. She'd made her decision; she was done. But the bridge hadn't entirely been engulfed in flames, despite her best efforts to fan the fires, and she could still plot a path across its rickety planks…if she was sure that was what she wanted.

But it wasn't. What she had wanted was fairytales and white knights. What she had wanted was poetic declarations and starry nights. Fragrant petals and precious gems. What she had wanted was perfection.

No, hadn't wanted this. She was sure of it. She'd traveled that path before; her debonair and _bland_ white knight following on his off-white steed as she picked her way through the thicket in search of her fairytale ending.

And there'd been no fairies to speak of, no tale to tell; she'd only gotten an ending.

But had it really been an ending? Or had the beginnings of something more, something she didn't want but _needed_ desperately, interwoven themselves so closely with the endings of nothing that it was hard to pinpoint where the end began and the beginning ended.

She told herself she didn't want this, didn't want his eyes looking at her as they had the night she'd given herself to him, didn't want his lips trembling ever so slightly from the hesitation he saw in her.

And she didn't.

She needed it.

"I love you."

The words flowed from his mouth before she'd reached out a foot to test the bridge between them, nearly even before she'd become aware that she was about to.

He still didn't shuffle towards her, or plead with her to come to him. His hands didn't shake, his throat didn't work; he didn't gulp in quick breaths. His eyes weren't wide with fear. Neither did he tack on a number to his words as if it were some obligatory response.

No. His posture was lax, his eyes dancing. And so were hers. Because he'd chased away Charles and had once more found himself.

Found Chuck.

Found his way back to her.

And she realized then, as she chanced falling through the scorched planks that had separated them once and her hand found its way into his, that sometimes the prince had to save himself before he could rescue his princess.

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A/N - I can't decide if I want his ILY to be inside, outside, in public, or in private. I'll just do them all.

Lynne


	3. White Light

_**A/N I own nothing. This is darker, be warned. Not meant to be offensive. My tenses might be slightly off because it's 3:45 a.m. in Ontario, but I couldn't sleep until this was out. I'm curious particularly as your thoughts on this one. **_*Not spoilerish* For EVE:)

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He knocks on her door lightly, with flowers in hand. Dorota, with her stern eyes and knowing smile, has snuck him past the bulldog – and Handsome, too – and up the stairs.

"Blair?" his voice sounds sad to his own ears, though not as blue as the paint that covers her walls, and he can't help but wonder why.

Later, he would think to himself as he strokes her hair as she sleeps fitfully in his lap, that it was a warning sign his racing heart didn't allow him to head.

And he's glad it didn't. Because then who would saved the Queen when God washes his hands of the duty and she can't save herself?

The answer, though little more than a year passed it would have surprised him, too, is the devil himself.

Chuck Bass.

"Blair?" and the sadness skitters out of his tone and after his nerve, but he pushes on because he's made her wait long enough and he thinks this just might be one of those moments men whose pants have long since devoured their belly buttons prattle on about for centuries.

Of flowers and hands and _hearts_.

But she's not sprawled on her bed with her tearstained face pressed into her comforter or at her vanity; the picture of poise and defeated grace.

He almost smiles as he thinks the only alternative to be one of sharp whit and sharper tongues. Almost. Because then he hears the cascading sounds of her muffled cries.

"Blair?" Curiosity laced with confusion is all that remains of the warning he's glad he didn't head as the harsh lights that steal the pink from her cheeks constrict his irises painfully.

The soles of his shoes smack against the expensive French tiles that used to lay in solitude on the bathroom floor until she'd joined them, limp and pale.

"Blair?" It's a question she'll never hear, a demand she can't answer.

A prayer he'll never admit to.

She doesn't stir at his voice or flinch when thorns dig into her thighs as he lifts her from the ground. It's another bouquet of roses she'll never smell but it's the furthest thing from his mind.

He knows without having to look that the sparse (once) contents of her stomach now churn in the porcelain encased puddle.

Though he would have never thought to think it before.

_Had_ never thought to _think_ before.

Not about her, not really. He'd plotted, and schemed, and wiggled his way into her heart and he'd never given thought to what a Chuck shaped whole would do to it once Chuck refused to fill it any longer.

It had been about him. What _he_ wanted. What _he_ needed. What _he_ was going to get.

_Him, him, him. _

He'd never given her what _she_ wanted. What _she_ needed. What _she_ deserved.

Not ever, and not lately. Though he had tried. Momentarily, but he had tried.

All of a sudden petals and stems and tissue paper seem silly. Juvenile. And almost petty.

Has he done this to her? Or has she been courting toilette nymphs for longer than he's been chasing her, picking up the bread crumbs as she carefully lay them out.

No wonder that when _the words_ stuck in his throat did she retreat into herself and change the passwords to all her hidden doors.

If she did not - could not love herself, how was she to subside on audible gulps and hitched breaths and words wrapped in barbed wire?

"Blair?" His prayers turn pleading and his knees give out as his tears leave salty streaks down her pale cheeks. Vacant eyes are finally revealed beneath her thin lids and he can't stop himself from tearing pieces of his heart from his chest to patch the hole he's left in hears.

"I love you. And I know you deserve better than to hear it like this… Deserve so much more than me. And I'm sorry." And he is sorry. He can count on one hand, one finger, actually, the amount of times before now he's said those words and meant them.

_Really_ meant them.

"I'm so sorry, Blair." That's three. "I'm sorry for me; for being cowardly, and arrogant and rude. For loving myself more than I loved you. But most of all I'm sorry for you; that I ignored what you wanted, ignored what you needed. Ignored you."

Tears fall freely and unashamed and she uses what little strength her limbs cling to tightly to brush them away. And the shred of his heart he still holds onto breaks when he smells the putrid sweetness on her finger tips.

"I am in love with you, Blair Cornelia Waldorf," he tells her with her palms on his face and his gaze holding hers. "And I know I've made you wait, and I know I haven't been fair, and I know I've hurt you, but I do. I love you. I know don't deserve you, but you don't deserve this." He could have gestured or emphasized his meaning with his tone or a quick or his brow but the haze that had surrounded him – had surrounded them – since he watched his step-mother's hand usher his father's life down the drain finally began to lift. And for the first time since antiseptic hallways lined the pathway to his orphan hood, he can see her clearly.

Can see himself clearly.

So he kisses her temple, uttering over and over how beautiful she is, how beautiful she'll always be to him, and lets her fall asleep in his arms despite the cramps in his thighs and the price tag of his suite.

Lucifer has long since fallen from heaven. And he won't take another angel with him tonight.

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A/N- I'm going to bed now, I think they next few little drabbles will most likely be less depressing than this one.


	4. White Rose

_**A/N - I own nothing. I have no idea where this one came from. Or what to make of it. Dedicated (again) to my lovely wifey who wanted a little rose redemption. :) Let me know what you think. **_

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"This isn't how I wanted to do this," he begins and not for the first time since she'd edged her way across a leather throne not unlike this very one, she wonders just what 'this' is.

But he's still talking and she gets the feeling that she's about the miss the punch line.

Though life isn't supposed to be a joke, now is it?

She's tempted to cut him off. To scream and kick and bite and spit if it will only stop the fall of words from his mouth. She'd even chance a yawn at this stage, though her make up has been applied immaculately as always, and she wouldn't want the mask that does more than add rouge to her lips and charcoal to her eyes to slip.

Not with him.

She'd be naked then. And though she thinks the setting would be more than appropriate, she can't bring herself to be vulnerable before him like that.

Not again.

Besides, it's colder in the dead of January then when winter first looms in mid November.

And now she has missed the punch line because he's looking at her expectantly, searching her face with eyes that normally see her despite her magic mascara wand.

She's not sure when they stopped, not even sure when they started. And for the life of her, she can't figure out when she'd begun to want them to. Begun to crave the tingle of his gaze on her skin, pulling secrets from her vault like her very own Houdini.

She bites her tongue to stop the giggle – nervous, though she can't decide as to why – that's tickles her throat at that.

Houdini had a death wish, too. But he got what he wanted.

"I had wanted this to be special." His tone is scaring her now, and she swears she can hear the overture as the overgrown shark approaches in the background. But her eyes find their way to his and to her astonishment – and maybe just a little delight – no disgust! – he's taking her hand in his.

She thinks for a boy who's as germaphobic as the one who the seventeen year-old version of herself had fallen long and fast and _hard_ for, he's reached for her hand and accepted hers as it searched for his more times than she can count.

_Twenty six_, that voice she's been trying to burry along with the broken shards of her heart whispers and she's sure he can hear it in the dark of their small enclosure.

And maybe he can because they are coming to a halt and he's slipping from the black beast like he slipped from her bed that night he'd darkened her pillow with his tears. But she refuses to follow this time.

She'd rather lead.

It's safer for her sanity. Safer for them both, really.

_Safer for your heart_. She wonders if murdering the voice inside your head would constitute the prohibition of her burial on sacred grounds?

It's a good thing she's not Catholic, anyway.

And her door is opening, letting light and cold and _him_ seep into the air surrounding her. She'll need a weeks worth of manicures after clinging to her resolve this long and this tightly.

She will not hurt herself to heal him. She can not sacrifice herself to save him.

But she's been raised a lady and it's impolite to ignore a person when their words ask – she ignores the pang that comes when it isn't 'demands' – for your attention. So she turns her head, intent on glaring at him until even through his blurry haze he can see the picture she's painting for him.

But her brush has crumbled in her hand or maybe it's just her resolve, because his fingers are filling the void between her own and her feet are hitting pavement.

"I wanted this to be everything you wanted." His eyes looker clearer, more brown and less red then she's seen them since paper snowflakes adorned fake skies and she can't help but feel her fingers squeeze his in a gesture she shouldn't be shocked to find is reassuring.

But it is and she is because not every inch of her, apparently, had been informed that they were over; that she was done. She'll worry about punishing the incompetent party later. Because he's still talking and she's just now noticing that the fingers laced with hers feel rough, almost as if he'd made whatever's in the velvet box he's pulling from his pocket himself.

But he's Chuck Bass and she knows better.

"I know our track record with these…" His voice rumbles in her chest as if she were the one to speak the words.

Which is crazy, since she's not speaking to him at all. Hasn't been speaking to him for months. Years, even.

And isn't supposed to be looking at him. Or touching him. Or letting him touch her, letting herself be touched by him.

"But that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Be touched by words of a poet dancing on his lips.

But she is.

And he's pulling his hand from fingers she's not sure if she should be ashamed or terrified that she finds are reluctant to let his go.

To let him go.

Jack Frost whispers in her ear and but she refuses to head his call because for the first in nearly twenty seven times, since brown replaced blue and fire edged out ice, the games are a foot no longer and he's reaching for her hand.

Her pulse is screaming in her ears, her heart kicking in her chest so she bites her tongue to keep herself from spitting the words she knows he's about to say.

Because he's still talking…

For the first time in a long time it's Chuck's tongue and not Charles' who's forming the words.

…and she doesn't want to miss her chance to giggle at the punch line.

"Blair, I love you."

She realizes then, as her smile spreads slow and wide and her tears tug her mask from her face, that she's been here before.

Stood in this very spot before.

But her skin hadn't touched his then. She'd been wearing a second skin, one of black leather not un like what lines the belly of the beast behind her, and his fingers weren't plastered – though he himself had been – in band aids.

"I love you." The words fall from his lips again, but not in a plea to hear them from hers. And not in a prayer, either.

It's a fact that he's stating. The sky is blue, winter is cold, and Chuck Bass is in love with Blair Waldorf.

Her mask is gone now, she doesn't need it any more because he's handing her a single white rose. A rose, it dawns on her then, that's he's pulled the thorns from himself.

With his own fingers. To save hers pain.

Save_ her _pain_._

So she smiles and nods her head when he resumes the position he'd been so found of _waiting_ for the _future_ to return to.

Because their future is now.

Though it took them light years to get here.

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A/N - If you'd like to leave me a request for C's ILY, feel free. I'll see what I can do. And thank you to everyone who's been leaving me their thoughts, I'm working on getting back to you :)

(And, Lauren, I'm still checking out your stuff. :))

Lynne


	5. White Lies

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing. Clearly, or else # 3 would have already happened in the GG verse._**

**_A/N - There may be one more after this one, I'm not sure. Thank you to everyone who had reviewed, it is much appreciated. I've been cranky lately, so I apologize if my replies have been slow, or abrupt._**

**_Dedication: Blood Red Kiss of Death. I hope this is doing your prompt justice, Red. :)_**

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His eyes fall on her, fingers twisted into knots in her lap as she sits on the bed of the girl she's know all her life, wanted to be all her life, and he can't help but think of his father.

It's an inopportune time for his thoughts to slide from brunette to silver, from brown to blue, and he knows it, but it doesn't stop the switch in his head from being thrown.

It's his house again now, thought it never was a home, and ever since he's picked up his suitcase, brining stale air back to its birthplace, he can't help but find himself buried in the past.

She senses him watching her, he can tell, but he doesn't clear his throat or shuffle his feet or give her the satisfaction of confirming what she already knows. He's there in the shadows, he's been there in the shadows, and he thinks that maybe they just might be even now.

"Chuck."

But he knows they'll never _really_ be even. Knows that all his childish games and infantile fantasies are a candle in the wind compared to the bonfire of her sacrifices. He lurked and manipulated, slicing tiny pieces from her heart in an attempt to claim it for himself, while she, in turn, tried to chase down all the shattered pieces of his.

To heal it.

To heal him.

To heal _them._

She's saying his name again and turning to face him, giving him a little piece of her that he knows she wishes she wasn't and that they both know he doesn't deserve. She's forgotten herself and it shows in the tremble of her lips and the not-quite defiant look in her eye as she tries not to drink him in.

He almost wishes she would. Because then her lips would be pressed against his and he wouldn't be hovering once more like the uninvited undead in the doorway to the bedroom of his very own fake flesh and blood.

He's tempted, not for the first time in his life, to back peddle or run but he's already falling – already _fallen_ – forward across the threshold and it's too late for that now anyway.

Her lips are moving and she must be talking because her throat is working like it did that day, and he cringes now, all too long ago in the _too cold_ New York air, but her words refuse to be heard over the pounding in his ears.

He's nervous, and so he should be. This isn't a broken nose he's risking.

She's staring at him intently and his thoughts can't help but slip once more to the man he wished his father could be. To the man he knows now his father wished he himself could be. He'd talked once, not ten feet from where his son sits now, dry mouth and eyes anything but, of girlfriends and pride and _feelings _and as he looks at her now he can't for the live of him think why the buds he'd hand selected himself had ended up in the trash.

Why he'd thrown _them _in the trash.

"Chuck?" It's his name and it's plea. And he can see now just what he's done to her, just what he's _been_ doing to her. So he smiles as best he can through the tears that clog his throat and in a tone of voice that reminds him of moments past – of people past – he finally gives her the words he knows now father had felt for son.

"I love you." Because he does, he has, and he probably always will. And she smiles, but there's pain behind her eyes and he knows just what she's thinking. "I probably always will." Her fingers are in his now and for the life of him he can't remember when they got there, but he can pinpoint the moment when his hands had begun to feel empty without her fingers filling the voids between his.

And she's crying and smiling but the pain's there too and it hits him then.

He's her love and hope and _pain_.

So he drops a kiss to her palm, and his heart at her feet, and does something only the man whose name he alone now carries would ever comprehend.

"I love you, Blair. I'll love you all my life. And until just now, I never really understood what it really means. But if you loving me is only going to hurt you, only going to push you to your limits and stretch you thin, then I'd rather see you whole… and happy…" And he doesn't say it…

_With someone else._

…but she hears it anyway. He knew she would.

She _is_ Blair Waldorf.

It's why he loves her, after all.

But she wouldn't be Blair Waldorf, not _his_ Blair Waldorf, if she gave up without a fight. So despite all the reasons why she shouldn't, all the reasons he's given her to not, all the reasons that late at night when no one hears he prays he'll find redemption for, she smiles through the pain and reaches into his past to give him her future.

Because he is her Chuck Bass.

And she _is _his Blair Waldorf.

And it's why he loves her, after all.

His father would be proud.

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A/N - I'm working on maybe one more, and then forcing myself to get back on track with the other fics I need to update. lol

Lynne


	6. White Doves

_**A/N I own nothing. Thank you for letting me know your thoughts on these, I've had fun with them. I believe this to be the last. And personally I prefer #2, 3 or 5. But maybe 3 a little more. lol. (Although, I would take it by a boat or on a goat, in a tree, or on one knee at this point.) Thoughts?**_

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"I said no, Chuck." But he's not deterred because he knows that she's never meant it before. And he hopes that she's not planning on starting now.

"Please." The word gives her pause like he hoped it would and not like he intended it to. Because he's done pulling her strings, making her dance for an audience that never really saw her.

And would never see her – no matter how shinny his armor.

His heart's in his throat and he considers praying, as she chews on full lips, that this last curtain call includes an encore. He can see it in her eyes, the moment 'yes' plunges its dagger – the one it must have pulled from her heart, the one that he put there himself - into 'no' and steps to centre stage. So he nods and links his fingers with hers before 'no' resurrects itself once more.

She doesn't smile at the action, she's told herself she won't, he knows, but the fleeting twitch of her lips eases his mind, though they both know he doesn't really deserve it.

They've been here before, in this moment, in this place, and she's staring at him with that glint in her eye that tells him she's the reason he hates the term 'bell curve.' "This…"

He nods his head, his palm suddenly slick with nerves under hers, as the little black flats he requested she wear slap against the concrete and echo in his memory. Hers too, and it's that recognition that stops his throat from failing as it did then.

"I love you." And her breath is leaving her body faster than she can draw it in and he thinks it just may be the first time he's seen her speechless. "I should have said it then." He admits, because he finds he likes stealing her breath and doesn't quite want her at the top of her game if he's going to be able to get this all out.

She's still gasping for breath and her eyes can't quite hide her shock so he guides them slowly from the small of her back into the waiting limo.

He realizes now it's always been waiting, will always be waiting – the limo, yes. But her – and them– too.

She's always wanted perfect, and he's never been anything close, but he thinks this may just top rubies and pins and a decade of doldrums.

Her eyes question him, that tiny spark that starts deep with brown pools and ends up in the pit of his stomach, and he finds his lips curling upwards for the first time in months – years, maybe. But he doesn't tell her their destination, she'll recognize it soon enough, and besides, he'd rather see the expression on her face when she does head on.

He's done backing into life, into _them._ And she deserves to see it.

"It's a rooftop." She knows it, he knows it, but it's _what_ rooftop it is that has her voice cracking right along with her resolve. "And we're in Brooklyn." And he's handing her a single white Lily that he's taken the time to tint a deep purple himself (Humphrey, for all his faults – numerous as they may be – is a (virtually) untapped wealth of useless knowledge.) A single tear appears behind her eyes to match the single flower she holds in her hand and he's struck by an unnamable distain for the singleness of it all.

Ironic, he knows. So he opens his mouth and repeats the declaration so at least she'll hold a pair of them in her heart. "I love you."

She tilts her head in that way she does when he's surprised her, really surprised her – and not with slander or manipulation, either. With sincerity. And he can't help but feel a pang as she hesitates for the briefest of seconds before allowing her fingers to meld into his.

She's holding back, he realizes, and this is his final test. But he's never been one for studying. "I should have said it that night." He's tempted to tack on 'too', but he knows her disdain for the word, born of reciprocation without thought or emotion or _feeling,_ and can't bring himself to wound her anymore than he already has.

Some things you learn by doing.

He's pulled her all over town now, from Manhattan sidewalks and Brooklyn rooftops to Hampton Mansions framed by white pillars and surrounded by private gardens, handing her another piece of himself until he's not sure where he ends and she begins.

She hesitates again as he pulls her toward the helicopter pad that started his slow downfall into this hell of his own making, but this time, as she turns wide eyes on him, she's gripping his fingers tightly; all pretenses of curtain calls and last goodbyes and endings are gone from her gaze. And he knows he doesn't have to explain, but he never could separate wanting and having when it came to her. He hears the word in the air between them before his stomach can flutter to life with nerves as they come to the climax of their little play.

"Tuscany." A single word – and this doesn't bother him now, because the word might stands alone, yes, but he knows from the tears in her eyes and the slow kick of his heart in his chest that _they_ never will.

He can tell by the smile that reaches her eyes that he's done redeeming himself and Manhattan.

And the city where it all ended, where she watched the crown she'd placed on her newly appointed Prince tarnish and slip from his head, is just the place for him to crown himself as the King to her Queen.

He doesn't worry about his title slipping this time, Prince Charming was over rated.

And he was never really one for incest, anyway.  


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_**A/N - ... I'm tempted to explain the incest comment to its fullest, but I want to leave this piece as is. **_  
xoxo

Lynne


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